


a mess, he looked pathetic

by cinderrain



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of alcohol, Minor Injuries, Multi, Polyamory, Sandwiches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 14:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7536172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderrain/pseuds/cinderrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Established polyship - could exist in the same verse as <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/7154447">one two three (four)</a> but can also stand alone. </p>
<p>In which there are sandwiches, band-aids, and late-night snuggles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a mess, he looked pathetic

**Author's Note:**

> I've found my niche as a fic writer: Aaron Burr and grocery shopping.

John’s making himself a sandwich downstairs when the door opens.   
  


He’s not actually hungry, but he couldn’t sleep and he gets a little restless at night, when no one else is awake. At least if he overdoes it with the food he can put it in the fridge and save a little time tomorrow morning, when there’s Alex to laugh with and Eliza to grin adoringly at and Aaron to tease. Sandwiches are nice. They’re easy, a rhythm that he can settle into and forget himself with.  Bread, middle part, bread again.   
  


And so, when the door clicks open, he’s got five turkey sandwiches sitting on the counter and a can of tuna in one hand. He puts down the bread and turns just in time to see Alex slipping through the doorway like he’s trying to pretend to be a shadow. Good try, buddy, but shadows don’t open doors.   
  


“Alex?” he whispers. Instead of flicking on the lights and giving up the ruse, Alex freezes. “Alex, babe, what’s wrong?”  
  


“Nothing, I’m fine, just go - go back to sleep, what are you doing up?” His voice wavers a bit and he sounds distracted. It’s obvious to anyone looking what John’s doing  - the sandwiches aren’t exactly hidden. “John, please, go back to bed.”  
  


“I -” At a loss, John gestures at the stack of bread helplessly. He doesn’t get another response; Alex hunches in on himself near the door, as if trying to hide. The light from the kitchen spills over the couch, but it doesn’t quite make it to the other side of the living room.   
  


John puts down the can of tuna and reaches for the light switch.   
  


The first thing he sees is the quick little jerk of movement that’s Alex flinching, and then immediately after he notices the red. He approaches, steps quickening as he tries to get closer. Alex finally closes the door. He stands with his hands in loose fists by his side and face turned down, radiating resignation and defeat like a child who knows he’s been caught doing something wrong. John catches his elbow in one hand and hovers the fingers of his other hand by Alex’s jaw, wanting to tip it up so he can see how bad it is but not willing to touch.   
  


“You’re bleeding, baby, what the hell happened?”   
  


Alex doesn’t answer, but after a beat of silence he tips his chin up stubbornly. The shadows on his face resolve into a large, splotchy bruise across his left cheekbone and a split lip. There are smudges of dried blood above his mouth, suggesting a nosebleed. His hair’s a mess: there’s a strand stuck to his face, only some of it stayed tucked behind his ear, and some has made its way into his mouth. The corners of his mouth are turned down, pretending at firm resolve while his eyes fix on John’s ear instead of his eyes.   
  


John sighs. “Doesn’t matter, I don’t need to know how you got hurt to fix it.” He pauses for a moment, half-turned toward the kitchen with Alex’s unresisting wrist in hand. He’s not entirely sure how to fix it anyway, it occurs to him; usually how it goes is he and Alex both charge around outside or roughhouse, and then either Aaron or Eliza patch them up. “I’ll go fetch Aaron. It’s the middle of the night, we don’t want to upset Eliza -”  
  


“I - okay.” Alex follows along and lets John sit him down on the couch. John goes “don’t go anywhere, okay?” and he nods, picking at a little bit of broken skin on his knuckles. John stops halfway up the stairs and shoots a glance back, and Alex - for once - hasn’t moved, is hunched down small in the couch, quiet like he’s guilty. John doesn’t want to leave him by himself, but he can’t exactly go back and curl up with him on the couch. Catching up on cuddles is not the Responsible Partner thing to do.   
  


Which is why he’s fetching Burr, of course. The sooner this responsibility thing is off his shoulders the better. He knocks once, twice on Aaron’s door. Aaron opens it almost immediately - he’s not dressed for bed yet and there’s a lamp on near his desk. He rubs his eyes and makes a sleepy questioning mumble.   
  


“Alex is hurt,” John tells him simply.   
  


This gets his attention. He blinks himself alert and follows John down the hallway. “How bad?”  
  


They’re at the bottom of the stairs before John can figure out how to word his answer. He settles on “I don’t know what happened,” and Alex looks up as they approach. He doesn’t say anything, but he reaches out an arm and that’s all the invitation John needs. He goes in a melting sort of motion and ends up with his feet tucked behind him and his arms around Alex’s ribs, his face buried in Alex’s shoulder. He hears Aaron laugh at them, a quiet huff of breath before he sits down on the coffee table to face them.   
  


“Alexander, what happened?” Aaron’s voice is soft but John, ear pressed right up against Alex, can hear his boyfriend’s heartbeat speed up. Alex’s nails trail absently over John’s forearms as he tries to think of an answer - those on one hand are chewed blunt and frayed, scraping at John’s skin, while the other’s are long with neglect.   
  


“John said it d’sn’t matter,” Alex mumbles, petulant with exhaustion. “Just… fix it? Please?”  
  


Aaron sighs, pained and fond, and gets up to fetch the first-aid kit. He returns with a collection of other things, too, and John sits up reluctantly to help Alex accept them. “We don’t have any ice packs left, so here’s this.”  
  


“A peach?” John frowns at it. Aaron starts pressing band-aids on Alex’s littler cuts and scrapes in the meantime.   
  


“It was in the freezer, don’t ask me why. I should probably go on another grocery run, speaking of.” Aaron’s voice is serious and steady, but when John glances up from the peach, he sees Alex’s face practically covered in band-aids.   
  


“You’re supposed to be the mature one in this relationship,” Alex whines, finally pushing Aaron’s hands away and taking off a few from his eyebrows and one over his mouth. He presses a Stormtrooper on John’s elbow and a Hello Kitty over the bridge of John’s nose, and then sticks the Mickey Mouse right in the middle of Aaron’s forehead after a few seconds of deliberation.   
  


John presses his frozen peach to Alex’s bruised cheekbone, and after a bit of squirming and complaining he grabs a wayward shirt off the back of the couch to wrap it in and make the cold sting less.   
  


Aaron dabs a damp paper towel over the split lip. “Are you hurt anywhere else? And can we at least know why you don’t want to tell us what happened?”  
  


Alex flinches back from Aaron’s attempts to clean his cuts. “Hurts,” he whines. “Kiss it better?”  
  


John sees Aaron move closer almost immediately before thinking better of it and sitting back firmly on his haunches. “Only if you tell me what happened. Come on, Alexander, we need to know if you’ve pissed off another gang member or something and he and his buddies are going to come storming in our house in a few hours.”  
  


The stairs creak behind them and everyone jumps. Eliza stands there in her nightgown, rubbing her eyes and biting down on a yawn. “What’s going on? Is everyone okay?”  
  


“Eliza, dear, I thought you were asleep.” Aaron looks vaguely guilty, although they couldn’t possibly have been loud enough to wake her.   
  


“I woke up and it was cold. Also my ‘partners-are-getting-in-trouble’ senses were tingling.” She slides on a half-grin, made adorable by sleepiness. She finishes descending the stairs and sees the state Alex is in. “Oh, Alex, babe.”  
  


“M’sorry.” He doesn’t meet her eyes, and John watches him steel himself, making some kind of decision. His fingers close into fists, a handful of John’s shirt in each. “I didn’t want to tell you what happened because you’d get mad.”  
  


“Alexander, when have we ever -” Aaron starts, and then stops. “Well.”  
  


Eliza sits down on Alex’s other side and takes over peach duty. John slides his freed hands up Alex’s shirt, and his victim  _ eeps  _ from the chill. He removes them and snuggles apologetically, because oops serious conversation time. Eliza’s rolling her eyes as John refocuses his attention. “What Aaron means is that you’re never right about which things we’ll be angry at you for. The answer is fewer things than you think.”  
  


“I… almost got run over by a car.”  
  


“ _ Alexander _ ,” Aaron sighs immediately. Alex peeks out from where he’s hiding in John’s elbow, evidently decides that Aaron’s not so much mad as exasperated (his usual state), and continues.   
  


“Almost is the key word here. You know how I get in moods sometimes, especially in the early morning -”  
  


“Like the one you’re in now?” John can’t help but interject. It’s unsettling to have Alex refuse to talk, for once, instead of the polar opposite.   
  


“John, let him finish,” Eliza chides, and everyone settles back down.   
  


“I was doing my brooding thing but like. In the middle of the road. Because I may have been a little drunk? But not a lot! Not like usually. And then there was a car -”  
  


“Oh no,” Aaron mutters, head resting in hands and elbows resting on knees.  
  


“And maybe I got clipped by it a little in my panicked scramble to get out of the way, and then I maybe also fell into a ditch. And banged my head on a streetlight getting back out. It was a small bonk though! No concussion, I swear.”  
  


“ _ Alex _ ,” Eliza and John say at the same time.   
  


“And you guys always get like this whenever I do stupid things and get hurt,” Alex finishes. “John you’re leaning on a bruise.”  
  


John sits up guiltily, and Alex smiles forgivingly and pulls him back down. He’s looking much calmer, having survived the confession with no drastic fallout - besides fond admonishments and more band-aids from Aaron and a boop on the nose with the peach from Eliza. He blinks slow, and settles himself deeper in the couch between Eliza and John.   
  


John’s ready to fall asleep right there, after all the excitement, but Aaron stops them. “Your spines will regret it if you sleep there. And it’s…” He checks the time. “Five in the morning, wow. Um. We might as well stay up if we don’t want to mess up our sleep schedules. I know I wouldn’t be able to get up in two hours.”  
  


“Mine’s already fucked though,” Alex complains. “You’re just jealous because there’s no room for you on the shitty couch to join the cuddles.”  
  


“Why were you up in the first place?” John asks him, from where he’s buried under many limbs. He’s not moving anytime soon.   
  


“I could ask the same of you,” Aaron shoots back. “Couldn’t sleep. Nightmares,” he adds, tired.   
  


“Aww, Aaron, no.” Eliza scoots over to make room and grabs his hand to pull him from his perch on the coffee table to the couch. It creaks, because unlike the one in the living room, this one doesn’t support four people easily. “You too, John?”  
  


“I made sandwiches.” John waves with one hand at the counter without lifting his head. “We can… have a picnic?”  
  


“At five am. Sure, why not?” Aaron groans when Alex starts wiggling to be let up out of the pile. “I’m hungry, Betsy. You’re getting between me and proper nutrition.”  
  


Eliza moves to let him off the poor couch. He passes each of them a turkey sandwich, scarfs down two himself, and gives John a few slices of bread and the tuna to keep making sandwiches from his position on the couch. There are crumbs everywhere and none of them care.   
  


“Hey, hey, look.” Alex takes the peach from where Eliza had set it down on the coffee table and unwraps the shirt from around it. John looks up from his concentrated attempt to use the last of the tuna and the bread efficiently in time to see Alex set down a knife and place a few slices of peach between the last two slices of bread they have. “Peach sandwich!”  
  


“Alexander, no,” Aaron protests. “Now I’m going to have to buy more bread. Look, you’re getting it all soggy.” He flails ineffectively when Alex jumps back onto the couch - almost into Aaron’s lap - and tries to feed it to him. “Eliza, help -”  
  


John eats his tuna sandwich. It’s been a pretty good morning, given their track record - no emotional trauma, at the very least. “Aaron, you realize that no one’s going to have enough energy to accompany you on a grocery run later? We’re all gonna be passed out in one of our beds.”  
  


Aaron yawns and wraps Eliza’s arm behind him so he can bury his head in the couch cushion. “… maybe the bread can wait until tomorrow. Nobody minds tuna sandwiches for lunch and dinner, do they?”

**Author's Note:**

> My work-in-progress fic titles are literally things like "cranberry" (i may have punched him) and "blueberry" (one two three (four)). This one was "peaches". One day I'll have all the fruit.  
> I did the frozen peach in a shirt thing with an apple for my wisdom tooth removal, in case anyone was wondering where that came from. 
> 
> Many thanks again to Claudine and Holly for edits/suggestions/being awesome in general!
> 
> (Alt summary from Holly: "There are two types of people in this world: those who think peach sandwiches are ridiculous, and those who think bigger.")


End file.
